1. Field
The field of these inventions is best characterized as pointing systems for addressing objects and is more specifically characterized as computer pointing systems for addressing objects and for manipulating information relating to such objects.
2. Prior Art
Definition of Pointing Systems
For purposes of this disclosure, ‘pointing systems’ include apparatus and methods arranged to address objects. A thing is the subject of a pointing system address action when the pointing system is manipulated in a manner which causes it to suggest an alignment or association (generally a spatial relationship) with the thing via pointing and position references of the system. An object can be said to be ‘addressed’ when a pointing system is pointing thereto.
Examples of Common Pointing Systems
Finger Pointing
Perhaps the simplest of pointing systems is the forefinger of the human hand. A common gesture in communication involves the pointing of ones finger toward an object of interest to indicate the object. For example:
                “‘The bridge on the left’ a man says while pointing to the Handford State Bridge distinguishing it from the Overton Bridge which is frequently mistaken as the Handford.”        
Thus, in communications, a person sometimes arrives at a need to indicate and distinguish one object from another and further to pass that indication in the conveyance of a message.
Computer Mouse
By the time of this writing, most computer users are familiar with an action described as ‘point-and-click’. Even casual use of a computer requires one to operate a pointing peripheral device, another example of a pointing system, typically a mouse, to cause a cursor to point at a region of a computer display, for example the region occupied by a certain icon image, and to trigger a mouse button whereby a ‘click’ event is raised and detected in a computer programming code. A computer is programmed to take appropriate responses to such point-and-click actions in accordance with a program running on a computer. Responses may depend upon the region pointed to, or ‘addressed’, and sometimes the precise type of ‘click’ action, for example a ‘double-click’; or a ‘right click’.
Therefore, we say that a computer has a ‘pointing device’ which is commonly a mouse type periphery; but may be a track-ball, PowerPoint®, touch screen, et cetera. With a computer pointing device, a user is provided the opportunity to interface with the display of a computer by making ‘point-and-click’ actions, among others.
In some systems, a cursor position within the display region is driven by tactile inputs from a user's hand. Such is the case with a mouse type periphery where spatial position is driven in two dimensions by the movements of a handheld orb.
Touch Screen
A ‘Touch Screen’ type pointing system is interesting because it is not a cursor icon device which is doing the pointing but rather the tip of a physical object, a user's finger. Contact made with the screen as a finger taps the screen's surface causes an event which may be detected and measured by tranduction apparatus, typically a resistive matrix membrane.
Lecturer's Pointing Stick/Laser Pointer
One will certainly recall a schoolhouse lecture where an elongated stick is used by a lecturer to point to various portions of a chalkboard. Modem lecturers may prefer a high-tech pointing ‘stick’ comprising a beam of laser light. These pointing systems are interesting in the sense that the pointing stick or laser pointer has a direction reference associated therewith. Thus, two lecturers standing in different positions before a blackboard may both point to and therefore address the identical object. This notion of pointing from various perspectives will be carried forward in the following disclosure. It is important to note that some pointing systems have associated therewith a direction reference while others such as the computer mouse do not.
Limitations of Current Pointing Systems
Because we do not live in the two dimensional world of a computer display sometimes referred to as ‘cyberspace’, but rather, we live in a three (spatial) dimensional world where objects of interest may be located in well defined spaces distributed about the Earth, the present invention concerns a pointer for addressing real objects anywhere rather than objects represented in two space on a computer's display screen such as an icon.
While the systems and inventions of the art are designed to achieve particular goals and objectives, some of those being no less than remarkable, these inventions have limitations which prevent their use in new ways now possible. These inventions of the art are not used and cannot be used to realize the advantages and objectives of the present invention.
One would be wise to review in detail the inventor's previous patents which relate in part to these inventions taught here as a more full understanding can be realized in view of that information. These patents include U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,173,239; 6,098,118; 6,064,398; 6,037,936; 6,031,545; 5,991,827; 5,815,411; 5,742,521; 5,682,332; and 5,625,765.
It should be understood that all of the herein referenced materials provide considerable definition of elements of the present invention. Therefore, those materials are incorporated herein by reference whereby the instant specification can rely upon them for enablement of the particular teachings of each.